


Hope

by DiePikDame



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:37:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2487992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiePikDame/pseuds/DiePikDame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time, Humanity had a weapon against that always superior enemy.</p><p>For the first time, Humanity had hope.</p><p>But, what about him?</p><p>What awaited him at the end of that tunnel? What could possibly await him other than guilt, death and oblivion?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hope

**Author's Note:**

> This was written with a the prompt "A glimmer of hope".

Hope was always a confusing thing for him.

His own flag to hoist in front of young armies, and nevertheless, alien.

Some inescapable force pushes him like a hurricane towards his goal. Drags him through the sea of wrecked corpses like paper dolls, of blood sprayed like tears in the air, of defeat piled over defeat like rainwater in puddles on the streets.

But was it hope?

Was the eternal battle, the lost battle, the blind battle, a battle for hope?

In front of him he had always seen a path, a tunnel of which he couldn't distinguish -but didn't quite ignore- the end. A straight tunnel so sharp to his eyes like the dark wooden desk in the middle of the room, like the last rays of the evening sun straining through the window behind him, like the very sofa in which he rests his only arm. At the end of the tunnel, he thought, he knew, was his goal. Humanity's freedom. Salvation.

That goal, in the past faint, blurry, unattainable, seemed now to be near, it was glimpsed like it was a glimmer of light at the end of that tunnel.

For the first time, Humanity had a weapon against that always superior enemy.

For the first time, Humanity had hope.

But, what about him?

What awaited him at the end of that tunnel? What awaited him other than guilt, death and oblivion?

What could possibly await the man that had sacrificed everything for the cause? The one that had given up a life, the woman he had loved, a family, even his own humanity, his own salvation?

Leader. Martyr. Executioner.

He had always been sure the only fate that awaited him was death.

At the end of the tunnel, death.

Found guilty of incompetence, of treason, of murder.

Damned to pay in Hell a sentence as compensation to all of those he had sent to their ends.

For him, death, for Humanity, salvation.

For him, oblivion, for Humanity, freedom.

He accepted that destiny.

After all, did he crave for something else? Did he crave to see the Walls' fall so that the scent of the forests and the seas and the mountains entered the city? Did he crave retirement, a leisure-filled old age? Did he crave honor, praise, glory?

No. Death was okay.

For years that had piled up like dust over his bedroom's furniture, death had been okay.

And the day when for the first time the attainment of his goal had been hinted, when he had felt himself dragged by the whirlwind of strange but for the first time clarifying events firmly and uncontrollably towards that goal, the weight of the question had fallen over him like the weight of the sky itself.

What if at the end of the tunnel death, dressed in black mourning, in white peace, didn't await him?

What if he survived to see the purpose of his entire life achieved?

Then, what?

Life?

Why had that thought shaken him?

Had he wished for death?

It had been surely so, he answers himself immediately.

Before.

Before, the end of that tunnel could only have been definitive, abrupt and total.

Before, death had seemed to him a fair punishment and reward.

Before, moments like this, moments of peace, of deep thought, of quiet had been completely forbidden to him.

Before, he had never even thought of dreaming of travels towards an infinite horizon no longer mutilated by walls, of evenings in front of the fireplace in his old age, of late and lazy mornings of breakfast in bed.

And now, now that years dissolve in front of the fateful events of a few days, now that Humanity has at last a chance...

Now that the dust that covered his home has disappeared leaving behind the most thorough cleanliness.

Now that the word "home" exists.

Now, while Erwin Smith gazes at Levi's sleeping face resting on his lap, he finds that he doesn't wish for that end anymore.

Maybe, just maybe, even he has a feeble light awaiting him at the end of the tunnel.

A glimmer of hope.


End file.
